Junker, the Italian app best known for guiding citizens through local waste sorting rules, is positioning itself as a broader municipal utility platform, according to Noemi De Santis, who discussed the company's trajectory in an interview with Renewable Matter.

The company's core product remains its waste-management function: users enter their municipality and receive localized instructions on how to dispose of specific materials, tapping into the fragmented patchwork of collection rules across Italian local authorities. With thousands of communes operating divergent schemes for the same packaging streams, the app consolidates that jurisdictional data into a single consumer-facing tool.

De Santis frames the next phase of the platform as a move from single-service waste guidance toward a multi-utility model that includes water services. The shift, she indicated, reflects both user demand and the economics of running a municipal-services platform: a citizen who opens an app to check how to sort a plastic tray is a natural audience for related utility interactions, from billing inquiries to service disruptions.

For waste-sector operators and municipal administrations, the development matters on two fronts. First, digital interfaces like Junker increasingly function as the de facto communication channel between waste utilities and households, particularly on sorting compliance — a persistent cost driver in separate-collection systems where contamination rates determine the quality of material delivered to sorting plants and, ultimately, to recyclers. Second, the expansion into water signals that platforms built on public-service data are scaling horizontally across utility verticals rather than deepening within a single stream.

De Santis's characterization — "from waste management to water, Junker becomes a multi-utility app" — positions the company in a growing category of software providers serving Italian public utilities as they digitize citizen-facing operations. Municipal waste companies across Italy have invested heavily in recent years in app-based communication tools to raise capture rates on separate collection, a policy priority under EU recycling targets that bind member states through 2035.

Whether Junker can convert its sorting-guidance user base into sustained engagement across additional utility services will depend on the contracts it secures with municipal water operators and waste management agencies — the commercial milestones that will determine whether the multi-utility pivot becomes an operating reality rather than a positioning statement.

Editor's note: This item is based on an interview given by Noemi De Santis to Renewable Matter. Further details on the platform's user numbers, municipal contracts and rollout timelines were not disclosed in the available material and will be tracked as the company announces them.